10 ways to boost the iPhone 3G's battery life

We show you 10 easy ways to extend the battery life of your Apple iPhone 3G by up to 25%

The Apple iPhone 3G's battery life has been a topic of some debate - not to mention lawsuits.

Because the iPhone's battery isn't easily user replaceable and lithium-ion batteries inevitably degrade a little every time they're recharged it's important you get the most out of iPhone's battery while it lasts.

(Incidentally, Apple estimates that after '400 recharge cycles' the battery will still retain 80% of its original power, but inevitably people may find real life scenarios are less optimistic).

The key thing to remember when trying to max out your iPhone's battery life is that the less your iPhone is doing, the longer it will last. So if you're constantly checking for mail, surfing the web, making calls and listening to music your iPhone will conk out that much quicker.

But there are also some background processes - such as 3G, push email, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, keyboard clicks - that eat up precious voltage constantly. Ask yourself if you really need any feature to be in an always-on state. If the answer's no, then turn it off and enable it when you need it.

So here are our top 10 tips for improving your iPhone's battery life. You may not be able to extend it to Apple's mythical claimed maximum of 250 hours of standby time, but you should be able to eke out up to 20-25% more battery life if you follow all of them.

Top 10 iPhone battery life tips

Store and use the iPhone at room temperature

Direct sunshine or putting the iPhone in the glove compartment of a warm car will cause your iPhone's battery life to drop sharply. The iPhone functions well between 0 degrees centigrade and 35 degrees centigrade (32-95° F).

You should store your iPhone in conditions between -20° C and 45° C (-4° F to 113° F).

The ideal battery life environment for both usage and storage is room temperature: 22° C (72° F).

Change Mail autochecking from every 15 minutes to every hour

Go to Settings

Click on Mail

Click on Auto-check and increase the interval or turn it off altogether

3. Turn off Wi-fi

If you don't need to use Wi-Fi constantly then you will get better battery life by turning it off and then enabling it when you want to browse via a hot spot.

Go to Settings

Click on Wi-Fi

Click on Off

4. Turn off Bluetooth

Go to Settings

Click on General

Click on Bluetooth

Select Off

5. Reduce the display's brightness

Go to Settings

Click on Brightness

Drag the slider to the left to dim the display's brightness

6. Enable the display's Auto-Brightness

Alternatively you could enable Auto-Brightness so the iPhone's display is automatically adjusted to match the current lighting conditions:

Go to Settings

Click on Brightness

Set Auto-Brightness to On

7. Lock the iPhone

It may sound obvious but locking the iPhone as soon as you've finished using it will turn off the display immediately and ensure that it won't be making persistent calls while it's in your pocket. Simply click on the Sleep/Wake button on the upper right hand of the iPhone.

8. Enable Auto-Lock

Better still, if you can get into the habit of locking your iPhone yourself simply turn on the Auto-Lock feature:

Go to Settings

Click on General

Click on Auto-Lock

Select a duration before the Auto-Lock kicks in, eg 1 minute or less

9. Turn off keyboard clicks

If you regularly use the iPhone's touch keyboard then the constant need to generate audio keyboard clicks can add to the iPhone's power consumption. To turn off keyboard clicks:

Go to Settings

Click on Sounds

Turn Keyboard clicks to Off

10. Turn off the music equalizer (EQ)

The iPhone's audio equalizer may add some oomph to the songs but it also delivers a powerful blow to the handset's battery life because of the constant processing it requires. To turn off the EQ: